How I'm thinking about our house, transportation, food and waste, to minimize environmental impact, while improving quality of life and having fun.

11/29/2011

Peak export point

It's been really mild (the bright, shiny side of climate change!) so the heat pump, while on, isn't using much, and November has had good sun (subjective judgement!). Yesterday (11-28-2011) is probably when we hit our peak exported amount of kWh - 1,733 kWh since the PV system went on line June 9th - and the combination of colder weather meaning more heat pump usage, and less sun through December, January, and February will mean that we'll begin to use more energy than the system generates. So we'll draw down our bank of credited kWh, until milder spring weather and more sun puts us back into net exporting again. It looks really good for us to be net zero in our first year of all electric operation. Over the next 6 months, we need to use less than the system generates plus the banked kWh, and that's all but certain from this vantage point.